Tuesday, December 30, 2014

A less bleak post for my rather neglected blog - Handmade cards to be given to people I don't particularly know very well, but who have been very kind to me. Making a card is probably a more appropriate gesture of thanks than going to a fancy shop and spending 5 bucks on something trite. And Monochrome on white is most suitable. It is the combination I love best and it is what I see all around me.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Five
months. Lush green tropical summer, rich golden red autumn, bleached out bare grey branches,white of full-blown winter... the contrasts are shocking, the dramatic changes of light and colour play tricks
on a tropical brain, I am hallucinating, everything shimmers, I am underwater.

White people turn colourless in winter, their skin completely desaturates, transparent, bloodless, I walk through a city full of ghosts. The sidewalks are piled high with melted sugar.Black flowers grow in them.

This is what I see in films, art films where everyone is talking
animatedly and eating plates full of salad before wearing dark coats and
walking out into the cold searching for lost love.

I have to tell myself over and over that this life around me
is not film but reality, a tangible reality which I am within
and part of...but the darkness around me says otherwise,
I am inside a cinema theater, I am an observer watching my life in a story on
screen.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Winter is a strange dream, monochromatic, abstract, bleached of all inessentials. Unusual images, alternate textures, pieced together on white paper. It is dark at noon and snowflakes fall. Flurries. Oh, the utter absolute frightening beauty of it all.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Once upon a time, long ago in another world, I used to go to
a place of worship. Sometimes I would be asked to read from the Holy Book. When
I stood at the lectern, ready to read, I would glance up for a moment at the
faces before me, and this drawing above is what I saw.What terrified me was that once I finished reading from
the Holy Book, I had to step down, walk towards this congregation and be a part
of them.

I have done this drawing with giant sticks of Senelier Oil
pastel. They provide a kind of knobbly resistance when used on Moleskine
sketchbook paper giving a strange crude texture which is appropriate for this
image.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Crowded cafes, beautiful people, green hair, red cups, I set
time backward...I am turning the pages of a glossy magazine I am inside photographs watching unreality around me. Shops sell diamond salt from the
mines of Kashmir, there is a Papier-mâché table before me, black chandelier
above me, person in front of me eating a donut, he dissolves into an artist in
Mont Royal eating pumpkin cheesecake who crumbles into an architect from Mile End
drinking cappuccino, they have silver hair, their faces are paper white, they wear
coal black, they look alike and multiply...then their faces melt, like pumpkins
after Halloween, there is a deer skull on the shelf.

Autumn. Flowers like my dreams at night retain their
structure, the desaturation button moves slowly, slowly to the
left.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

The thoughtful amongst you might think that
this serene picture is one of a poet out for a walk in the woods in search of inspiration,
at one with nature, in touch with his inner soul. But think again discerning
readers, look again! This picture has a far more chilling undercurrent to it
than what seems apparent on its warm, dappled surface; clutch your hearts and hold your
breath, this here is a picture of a hunter, the most lethal of them all – A Mushroom
Hunter.
Before I detect the slightest smirk on your faces allow me make my point. Hunters
of wild beasts saunter around the jungle with large guns and upon sighting prey
in the distance, merely lift their guns and pull a trigger, BANG, the prey
staggers and dies, the hunter walks up to the bloody carcass, takes a selfie
with her foot on the body, drags it over to the jeep and drives away. Yawn. Anybody
can do that. It is The Mushroom Hunter who is far more dangerous. One moment he
is merrily driving along peaceful country roads chatting about graphic novels and
ground coffee and the next moment he screeches the car to a halt much to the
surprise and consternation of his passengers, “Good heavens! Is something
wrong? Why did he stop?” And that is the instant when you see a Mushroom Hunter
in action. He darts across the road to an empty field, unsheaths his sharp, special
mushroom dagger, swoops down with a yowl of delight on helpless, quivering
little shaggymane mushrooms huddled together, swiftly chops off their heads and
places them in his trophy basket. If that isn't chilling enough there’s more mind you! A mere walk in autumn
woods is fraught with action. You might have had a meditative
stroll in mind, that moment of getting in touch with your Shakti that your Guru
so recommended, that you were so eager to experience, you are admiring the colors
of the trillion, zillion autumn leaves on the forest floor, you are just about
to attain nirvana through peace and happiness when the Mushroom Hunter
screeches to a halt before you and plunges his dagger into gazillion leaves on the ground and comes up with a teeny weeny quivering mushroom which he is
ecstatic about and which he holds aloft before your bewildered eyes. “See? See!”
And then as you sit trembling in recovery at the dining table, these mushrooms
are fried in butter and brought before you to be eaten. No blood and gore of
animal killers mind you, just swift, lethal, ruthless decapitation and dinner. Takes nerve to be the guest of A Mushroom Hunter I tell you. Phew!

Thursday, October 9, 2014

A
weekend with friends in Sutton
A constant downpour of nature
An endless overflow of all of life’s good things
How does one process so much beauty?
How can one truly give thanks for this much blessing?
I am not yet ready to know how to make my palette retell this abundance of new colors and emotions.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

‘You look well-settled’ is the phrase I hear most often for
the pictures I post on Facebook. There are others, less gullible, more curious,
who want to know what the immigrant experience is really like. To give the
right answers, I can perhaps do best with drawing out the series of images that
keep recurring in my mind. These days my experiences are images and emotions which I know will fall apart completely if described in words. Maybe these drawings will become proper complete works one day, but for
now, they are within the pages of a sketchbook, a visual record of a slow careful transition from one world into another, where every decision has to be weighed
carefully before it is acted on; putting down roots takes time, the past has
wiped itself out, the future is hazy, my goal is clear.

"You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts
of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires
and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we
stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all
asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves
by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are.
Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many
kinds of success."

If I had a single piece of advice to offer to any artist, it would be this: whatever your practice or medium, draw constantly. Be like the dancer, who never lets a day go past without a class. Draw as much as you can, wherever you can. Draw from observation (of course) but draw for practice too, from memory or from imagination, mark-making for precision or beauty-of-line alone, regardless of subject or likeness. Draw with pencil, with nibbed-pen, with charcoal or crayon or Conté pencil or biro. Draw with brushes and inks, or twigs dipped in watercolour or with old toothbrushes or the tips of feathers. Draw with anything. Subvert habit with new experience. Drawing can be for recording, but more than that it’s an expressive form that can be endlessly reinvented. Keep project-books and work at them even when the spirit doesn’t move you. Work in them out of discipline and respect for your art-form. They’re money in the bank for later, when you need the inspiration stored in them. Draw. Draw again. Never stop drawing.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Long ago I watched an Antony Bourdain show where he was
invited into the home of an Inuit family in aremote part of Greenland in Quebec, Canada. They
killed a fresh seal, brought it home, gutted the seal on the floor and
proceeded to eat the innards of the seal. Then the host reverentially handed
over the seal’s eyeball to Bourdain
who partook of it. The raw seal eyeball was delicacy, the best part of the seal. It was given to the guest
as a gesture of friendship. The point was not so much in whether Bourdain
‘liked’ the eyeball or not but that he accepted that gesture. The offer of the
delicacy and its acceptance was a bridge across cultures, a symbol of respect
and friendship.

Here in Montreal, a lovely couple invited me, a newcomer, to
their beautiful home. The hostess had earlier been to Marche Jean Talon and
procured fresh food for the meal. She had also thoughtfully bought for me a
particular food that I had once mentioned I had never eaten before. There on
the balcony, in the soft evening light, over wine and beer, she placed plates
of this food in front of us and showed me the unusual way of eating it. When I
thought I’d finished eating I was told that within the remnants lay the best
part of all – the heart. Then my host took my plate, helpfully cut up the core,
speared something on a fork and handed it over to me.
“Here it is” he said, “Here is the heart”.
At that moment I remembered Antony Bourdain being given the seal's bloody eyeball. Because I
was in Montreal I was given to eat an unusual flower with a heart in the centre, in another
country erm, part of Quebec, I would have been offered something quite different. But whatever it
was that was offered to me that evening, it was a beautiful gesture of
friendship, a bridge between cultures and an invitation into a different world.